“Huh,” Josh said, making to get up. His father waved him down.

“I’ll go. I should get back to work anyway. Kate, thanks for dinner.” He put a hand on her shoulder on the way past, and then he was gone, too.

“Weird,” Shannon said. I nodded. Very.

The teak dresser was still in the window of Nickerson’s Antiques the next morning when Derek pulled the truck to a stop outside. He pointed to it. “That it?”

“That’s the one. And that’s Mr. Nickerson.” I indicated the man who was wielding a broom to sweep a handful of yellow leaves off the sidewalk in front of his store. Today, he was wearing a denim suit, western style, with wide-legged jeans that looked like something Elvis might have worn in his heyday. On his feet were black snakeskin cowboy boots with high heels.

Derek nodded. “So I see.”

“Everyone knows everyone in Waterfield, don’t they?”

“Pretty much,” Derek said. “At least until Melissa and the Stenhams starting going wild and strangers started moving in.”

Mr. Nickerson heard this last statement. He looked up and nodded, although it was difficult to be sure whether the nod was agreement or just a general greeting. “Derek.”

“John.” He put out a hand, and they shook. “Avery’s been telling me about the Danish Modern dresser.” Derek glanced at the display window. “She’d like to use it for a sink base in a house we’re renovating. Mind if I go take a look?”

“Knock yourself out,” John Nickerson said. Derek headed for the store while the two of us stayed where we were, on the sidewalk. Downtown Waterfield was just waking up; blinds were lifted in the shop windows along Main Street, those of the shop owners who had sandwich boards or outdoor displays had put them out, and front doors were propped open with doorstops or tied with twine. The temperature would reach an estimated sixty-five degrees or so today, nice and crisp, but at the moment it was in the fifties, and I was glad I had a jacket on over my T-shirt and jeans.

“You told me that Peggy Murphy used to work for you, right?” I ventured, when the silence became uncomfortable. In the display window, Derek was examining the Danish dresser, pulling out the drawers and peering at the sides and back.

Mr. Nickerson nodded, his eyes on Derek, as well. “For six or eight months before she died.”

“Did you know Patrick, too? Her little boy?”

His silvered brows drew together slightly. “Met him. He’d come over after school sometimes, do his home-work or sit and draw in the back room. Why?”

“I’m just curious,” I said with a shrug. “I told you we’re renovating the old Murphy house. I saw pictures of Brian and Peggy in the newspaper archives, but I haven’t seen a picture of Patrick.”

John Nickerson leaned the broom up against the front of the store. “Looked like his mother. Brian had red hair and freckles. Like me, before I turned gray.” He smoothed a freckled hand over his ducktail. “But Peggy and Patrick were Black Irish, with dark hair and blue eyes.”

“Are you Irish, too, then?”

He shook his head. “Scots.”

“Nickerson doesn’t sound Scottish.” Although the only time I’d come across the name was when I was reading Nancy Drew as a girl, so what did I know? Still, in my mind, all Scottish names started with “mac,” which I knew meant “son of.” MacDonald would be the son of Donald and MacEwen the son of Ewen, and so on. Although MacNicker didn’t sound right. Nickerson was better.

“Nickerson and Nicholson are from the MacNicol clan,” John Nickerson explained. “Along with MacNicoll, Nichols, Nickells, and MacNeacail.” He helpfully spelled the different variants of the name.

“How about MacNiachail?” I wanted to know. He wrinkled his brows.

“Haven’t come across that one. Where d’you hear it?”

“Read it somewhere. So if you were in Scotland, your name would be Ian MacNicol? John is Ian, right?”

“More likely it would be Iain MacNeacail, but that’s close enough.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“For what?”

“For clearing it up for me.” I smiled. It seemed to worry him, because he peered intently at me. But before he could say anything, Derek came out of the shop again. “What did you think?” I asked, happy for an excuse to change the subject.

“I think I can make it work.” He turned to John Nickerson. “Will you take three hundred fifty dollars for it?”

They went into the age-old dance of buyer and seller, and I left them to it and turned my mind to what I had just learned. So John Nickerson was for all intents and purposes an Americanization, or Anglicization, of Iain MacNiachail-which had been the name of the dashing hero in Peggy Murphy’s unfinished bodice-ripper manuscript, Tied Up in Tartan. Did that coincidence prove that Peggy had had an affair with her boss?

“Not necessarily,” Derek said ten minutes later, after the purchase of the dresser was a fait accompli at four hundred dollars and I had told him what John Nickerson had said. “All it proves is that she had a crush on him. Or maybe not even; maybe she just liked the name.”

“It’s interesting, though, don’t you think?”

“I guess,” Derek said with a shrug. Apparently he didn’t find it as interesting as I did. “Why do you care so much, Avery? Not to be insensitive or anything, but they’re just as dead either way.”

“I know that,” I answered. “I know it doesn’t make any difference. I’d just like to know what happened.”

He glanced over at me. “No doubt about what happened, is there? Brian killed them.”

“I know that. But why?”

Derek shrugged. “He must have had a reason. There’s always a reason, whether we understand it or not. She could have been having an affair. She could have been thinking about leaving him. Or he could simply have thought she did. He could have felt threatened because she started working and having fun without him. We’ll never really know.”

“I guess. It’s just interesting to me, is all.”

Derek didn’t answer.

“I’ll get Wayne to help me unload the dresser,” he said when we pulled up outside the house on Becklea. For a wonder, it was nice and quiet here today. Maybe it was too early in the morning, or maybe the TV crew and the nosy neighbors had had their fill. Maybe they figured the excitement was over. Whatever the reason, it was nice to have the place to ourselves for a bit. The black and white cruiser was still here, though, parked outside Venetia’s house, so Wayne -or somebody-was doing something in the neighborhood. “Why don’t you go open the door,” Derek added, handing over the keys.

I trudged off across the grass toward our front door while he headed right, to Venetia ’s backyard and the back door. Two minutes later he came back. “Nobody there. Maybe they parked the car there to deter gawkers, or maybe Wayne ’s just didn’t hear the knock.”

“Maybe he went down the street to talk to Denise Robertson and Linda White,” I suggested. “He said he’d have to.”

Derek nodded. “Can you help me carry, or do you want to wait until Wayne comes back?”

“I’m not a wimp,” I said, a little insulted that he thought I was too weak to help him carry the dresser. Granted, I’m not big, and I was still a little sore from the accident yesterday, but surely I’d be able to hold up my end of a dresser.

“Teak has a very high density,” Derek warned. “It’s heavy.”

“Fine. There’s Lionel. Why don’t you ask him?” I pointed down the road to where Lionel Kenefick had just exited his house and was on his way to the van. He glanced our way, and Derek lifted a hand. Lionel hesitated.

“Be right back,” Derek said and took off down the road. I folded my arms across my chest and watched him meet up with Lionel at the edge of the latter’s driveway. They spoke for a minute-Derek gestured toward me, or more likely, toward the teak dresser on the back of the truck-and Lionel nodded. The two of them came back up the road.